Honour: A Play By Mark Penney

by Mark Penney

A Play in Two Acts

A searing, poetic drama about survival, identity, and the long shadow of so-called “honour.”Toronto, fifteen years apart.

Two girls named Amina Khan stand at the same knife’s edge.

One is sixteen, cornered in a dim apartment by a father who believes love is betrayal and shame can only be washed away in blood.

The other is thirty-eight, a child-protection worker who long ago escaped her own father’s rage, now racing through the snow to reach a girl whose file bears her own childhood photograph.When past and present collide in the same breathless moment, one woman must decide whether silence ever truly protected anyone, and whether honour can be reclaimed from the men who weaponized it.Raw, unflinching, yet ultimately hopeful, Honour is a heartbreaking confrontation with intergenerational trauma, the cost of immigration’s unspoken bargains, and the quiet, fierce power of women who refuse to let the next girl become a ghost.Written in spare, vivid language that lets silence speak louder than screams, this play moves between kitchen and interrogation room, mosque and foster home, memory and urgent present, until the knife finally falls, only once.

★ “Devastating and essential. I held my breath for the entire second act.”

★ “A gut-punch wrapped in poetry. Every social worker, every daughter, every parent needs to witness this."

Includes full performance rights under Creative Commons BY 4.0 – perform it anywhere, charge or not, just credit the playwright.

For every girl whose name became a ghost and for every woman who refused to let the next girl become one.

Now available for the first time in print and Kindle.

77 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 9, 2025

About the author

Mark was born in Wimbledon, London, and at an early age became devoted to animals of all shapes and sizes. Moving to South Africa at the age of 12 was a dream come true. After leaving school, he went into the commercial world, got married and only got into the bush for long weekends and holidays. Later, he left the commercial world, started studying again and completed a FGASA 2.

By the end of 1992, he was in the bush full time working at a number of lodges in various reserves and parks as a field guide. He also did conservation work with SANParks and the North West Parks and Tourism Board, which is where his true passion lies.